GHOST GAL: The Wild Hunt by Bobby Nash

one that Samuel had opened once they had moved them to the office. After extracting the ghost within and setting it on its journey to the other side, Samuel must have slipped the empty jar back into the van without telling them.
    “Makes you think maybe you misjudged him, huh?” she teased.
    “I wouldn’t go that far,” Joshua said. “I wonder why he wouldn’t just tell us though?”
    “You heard him, he’s got a boss just like everyone. They would not approve.”
    “Won’t he get in trouble when they find out one of their magic ghost jars is missing?”
    Alexandra smiled. “Samuel once told me something, I think he called it the best piece of advice he had ever heard. He said, ‘sometimes it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.’ Thankfully, the powers that be he works for are supposed to be real big on forgiveness.”
    “If you believe he truly works for…” his voice trailed off as he searched for the best way to say what he wanted to say. “…Them, Him, whatever. You know, the man upstairs.” He pointed skyward.
    “You don’t?”
    “Let’s just say I’m skeptical,” Joshua said.
    She smiled. “One of your many charms, Mr. Demerest,” Alexandra said playfully.
    “What do you say we get out of here before he changes his mind, huh?” Joshua said as he put the van into gear.
    “Good plan.”
    From an upstairs window, Samuel Esau watched as the van pulledout of the alley.
    He liked Alexandra and Joshua, even though he could tell the young man engaged to his friend was not his biggest fan. Samuel did not let Joshua Demerest’s feelings for him bother him. He had a job to do regardless of how they felt about him. He hoped that his gift could help them in some small way. If those above him chose to punish him for aiding his friend, so be it. He would accept whatever sanction his superiors placed on him if it came to that.
    Samuel was not accustomed to breaking the rules on a whim, but he had been known to bend them in the past. That was a large part of the reason, he knew, that he had been banished to this office.
    The joke was on his superiors though. Although most looked upon assignment to the New York OAGI as a punishment, Samuel saw it as an opportunity. He loved living in a city like New York. He loved the people who called this place home, the art, the culture, all of it. Samuel loved his work.
    Even more importantly, he knew how important Alexandra Holzer was to the mission. His position did not permit him to tell her everything he knew, but that did not stop Samuel from doing everything he could to help guide her along the path that had been chosen for her. Not only was she his responsibility, she was also his friend. Although he was friendly with almost everyone and made friends easily, there were only a handful of people that Samuel Esau let get as close to him as he had Hans and Alexandra Holzer.
    Although she didn’t know it yet, Alexandra Holzer’s life was about to get a lot more interesting.

T he Slaugh arrived in New York on the same day as the first snowfall of winter.
    Still inhabiting the body of Max Bartlett, the Slaugh had reacquainted himself with this new world he found himself in while searching for the tools he needed to enact his plans. He had spent a good deal of time traveling as he gathered the items he would need to restore his brothers. During his travels since awakening from his underground prison, the Slaugh had observed the humans that ruled the world. Despite being the dominant species, they remained as weak and fragile as he remembered them to be. So easily breakable. The humans sat atop the food chain for the simple reason that they had superior numbers on their side.
    Humanity did not inhabit the planet so much as they had infested it.
    The world had changed while he had been imprisoned, trapped inside the body of Duncan McGrath and buried beneath the Earth by Hans Holzer and his infernal futuristic weaponry. Before that, he had been trapped within